“We paid in all our lives”: AIBU to think, No you didn’t?

[Perlman]

My grandparents are traditional red wall labour voters. Born during WWII to poor families, they live where they grew up. My grandad worked in a factory and my nan worked as a secretary. Like many of their generation, they lived in and bought their council house. Very caring people until it comes to politics. They are hugely racist and advocate for sinking any refugee boats. This is despite the fact that some of their grandparents were refugees from Russia!

They want the triple lock, free bus passes, heating allowance, increased benefits for older people, et cetera. They think anyone who isn’t old who takes benefits is a scrounger and lazy. They say young people can’t afford to buy a house because they are lazy. They have inherited several, but put down their relatively comfortable position in retirement as to their ‘hard work’.

They justify their opinions and entitlement by saying “we paid in all ours lives, it’s our money”. AIBU to think that, well no, not really. You may have paid in money through taxation but clearly they are net beneficiaries of the state. They both had low paid jobs, bought and sold on their council house for a tidy profit, have thankfully lived a long life but with a myriad of expensive to treat health problems. So no, they haven’t paid for what they’re taking!

Nothing to do with them being elderly. Plenty of elderly people don't support children drowning or people being on benefits. If that bit is true.

But the minute they became pensioners they became hardworking people who have paid in all their life.

It's a really strange narrative, everyone denigrated the work shy, feckless etc but apparently these never existed in the past & some in fact are todays pensioners 😱

It’s a social contract.

I think a lot of younger people are frustrated because they feel the social contract is broken i.e they can't afford housing, lack of social housing, can't afford childcare or to have dc, wage stagnation etc.

Yes, I remember being one of the younger people frustrated about it back in the early 90s.

However, it is a social contract that is still in place.

But the vast majority of pensioners have worked all their lives, paid and are paying all the taxes asked of them. Just like OP’s grandparents. Just what do you actually want of us? Apart from conveniently dropping dead on the our 66th birthdays?

I have been in receipt of a state pension for five years. Before this I worked for forty-seven years with no breaks in employment, paying tax and NI for all this time. These deductions from my salary were helping to pay for other people’s children’s healthcare and education. I was also helping towards the maternity care of women and also child benefit. As a child free woman I didn’t benefit from any of this. However, this is how society works. We contribute towards the care of others and in the main it’s reciprocal. Just keep this in mind while you insinuate that pensioners are scrounging off you.

Yes, I remember being one of the younger people frustrated about it back in the early 90s.

Personally I think housing/childcare etc costs have changed a lot since then.

Oh, and I’m still paying tax so in effect, part funding my own state pension.

There is a generally agreed social contract, codified through law and taxation, that includes able-bodied people of working age now paying a portion of their income to support those who can't support themselves (children, the elderly, the infirm, the unemployed) now. That's how it works.

When your parents were younger they were part of this system. They may have been net contributors, despite being provided with a council house, I don't know. Now that they're old, they're still part of this system.

So yes, they're right in that they paid in when they were (maybe) on the giving end of the system, so it would be unfair for them not to be supported now that they're definitely on the receiving end.

However they're wrong, in that none of that makes them any more entitled to what they receive than the other various beneficiaries of the state - children needing schools, the unemployed and low paid needing housing benefit etc. As others have pointed out, there is no ledger balancing what they paid in 50 years ago with what they receive now (and if there were they might be surprised how lucky they actually are), only a ledger balancing what other people pay in now with what they and all other recipients receive now.

The large scale societal factors affecting that - the aging population, the exponentially increasing burden on the NHS and social care, the changes in the nature and economy of housing etc - are realities that we all have to accept, and that will have an effect on that balance.

Not that I'd expect them to be able to understand or accept any of this, of course.

But the vast majority of pensioners have worked all their lives, paid and are paying all the taxes asked of them

Is there statistics that show most of todays pensioners worked all their lives?

Just what do you actually want of us? Apart from conveniently dropping dead on the our 66th birthdays?

I'm confused why you have conflated me saying not every pensioner has worked & paid taxes all their lives = kill them all at 66...

I’m pretty sure that can be accepted as fact rather than opinion.

Sorry but that simply isn’t true. I’m not judging in a moral sense, it’s just a fact.

Only 57% of women of working age actually worked in the 1970s. It hovered around this figure until the late 90s.

You can’t say the VAST majority of women worked all their lives, otherwise who were all these women out of work?

Another huge problem with the social contract is the demographic changes. I think in the 60s it was 5 workers to 1 pensioner now it's 3:1 but it's forecasted to be 2:1 How you fund social care & the NHS with that ratio I have no clue.

You can’t say the VAST majority of women worked all their lives, otherwise who were all these women out of work?

Quite!

Is there statistics that show most of todays pensioners worked all their lives?

Of course there are. If you look at historic unemployment rates, it’s pretty bloody obvious that the majority of the population was in paid employment. Most of my generation started work at 16 and had worked continuously for around 50 years before they were eligible for their pensions.

@User6424678852 these threads always go the same way even if you include facts they are ignored. It's why the gov has been able to get away with ignoring the ageing population issue.

Bit worse now if you care to look ffs.

But this single struggling single mum didn’t have a virgin birth did she? Where’s the father in all of this?
Shouldn’t we be chasing him and expecting him to pay for the child he has helped create, rather than the taxpayers?

You can’t say the VAST majority of women worked all their lives, otherwise who were all these women out of work?

I said people, not women. Those women weren’t out of work, ie claiming benefits, they were economically inactive. Do you know why? Because there was virtually no childcare or maternity benefits so most women stopped work when a child was born and returned when they started school.

Absolutely! And then it seems to be somehow our fault if we got free higher education, as I did.

After the war, parents wanted the best for their children. And now the children are being blamed for that.

In fact, the whole country wanted the best for the next generation.

I said people, not women.

women are people 😆

Most of my generation started work at 16 and had worked continuously for around 50 years before they were eligible for their pensions.

statistical data would be great, I won't hold my breath though..

Boomers gonna boom.

Women are still people thought aren’t they? 50% of them, no less. And they were able to do that because cost of living was nothing like what it is today. The fact still stands, they didn’t ‘work all their lives’. I’m not judging, I would probably have been in the same position had I been a mum back then - but your assertions are not correct.